


A Home Worth Fighting For

by trickysnail



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: ALL THE ANGST, Anxiety, F/F, mostly canon compliant I think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:55:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 827
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25132747
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/trickysnail/pseuds/trickysnail
Summary: Alessandra Strong is, as far as she knows, the only survivor from the attempt to find the Free Dome. With both her kidnappers and her colleague gone, she must make her way back home alone.
Relationships: Alessandra Strong/Alessandra Strong's Wife
Comments: 5
Kudos: 17





	A Home Worth Fighting For

**Author's Note:**

> Content warnings: Mentions of violence, death, and injuries.
> 
> This story takes place directly after Juno Steel and the Promised Land. Alessandra's fiancee is never named in the show, so I decided to call her Phaedra. 
> 
> It's also my first fanfic evvveeerrrr.

Falling in love was the easiest thing Alessandra Strong had ever done. When she’d seen Phaedra again after all those years apart, it had felt like a click in her brain, like a voice deep within her had said _yes_. She’d walked straight into Phaedra’s arms and had known, in that moment, that she was home.

She wasn’t home anymore.

The laser blast that had taken off two of her fingers had, at least, cauterized the wound. She wouldn’t be bleeding to death. Not yet.

Between a plasma knife and her teeth she managed to rip a strip of fabric off her shirt and tie it around the stumps where the index and middle finger of her right hand had once been. She’d get new fingers, metal ones. She couldn’t think of the loss right now. She couldn’t think about whether or not Juno Steel was lying dead in the Martian desert, or if he was still in the process of dying.

A sob threatened to choke her, to tear away her oxygen supply and leave her useless on the floor.

_No_.

She wouldn’t die here. She _refused_ to die here. Phaedra needed her. Phaedra, who made the tea too sweet and always burned the rice. Phaedra, who went so still sometimes it was like she stopped breathing and wouldn’t come back to herself until Alessandra wrapped her up in her arms and whispered softly, “Shhh, love, it’s going to be okay.”

Alessandra was not going to die. She turned away from the inoperable door that led to the Martian desert where Juno Steel was dying and she did not look back.

The tunnel had felt longer before, when she was being held captive, frantically searching for an escape plan. Now the recordings had all been shut off and the place was eerily silent.

Her feet ached when she reached the checkerboard room where she’d nearly been blasted apart by an arsenal of firepower. Fear rose up in her throat, but nothing moved in that room, either. The floor and walls of the room were wrecked, the weapons still stood in their places as if waiting for a ghost army to operate them.

Alessandra shivered. She walked past the blood stain on the floor. There was no doubt about Pilot’s death. She’d watched as The Piranha had shot them. At least they wouldn’t have to walk home on that ruined foot.

A hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up, but Alessandra shoved it back down.

Phaedra never wore heels. _Foot torture_ , she called them. She’d shown Alessandra a medical text once, of the problems that wearing heels could cause. “Hammer toe,” she’d said, her face a picture of horror as she pointed to a picture. “And bunions. Bunions! No way, Alessandra, I don’t need fancy shoes that bad.”

Between the kidnapping and explosions, Alessandra had not asked Pilot if they had ever gotten bunions before they died, but she supposed it didn’t matter anymore.

The next room she walked back through was the test of charity, where Juno’s blood had been drained out of him and then shoved back in. She’d thought she’d lost him, for a moment there, but she hadn’t. Not then, anyway.

If she had a choice, would she prefer to die to blood loss or radiation poisoning? Would it be the radiation poisoning that got him? Thirst, maybe, or heat. Then again, The Piranha had been trapped out there with him, too. Would he be better off if the Piranha got him, or…

Alessandra paused to vomit up what little contents her stomach held before moving on.

She made it back to the cart and held her breath as she climbed inside. If everything else was shut down, the cart might be out of commission as well. Would there be a way back without it, a way to reach Phaedra?

Fuck, she’d been gone for three days already. She’d left home in a hurry, popping a kiss on Phaedra’s lips and telling her that she’d landed a job, maybe the sort of job that would help them save their apartment before they were evicted. So much for that.

The doors to the cart did not close automatically. Alessandra wrenched them shut by hand and studied the control panel. She experimented with pushing a few buttons until the screen flashed on. Her hand trembled as she selected the option to take her back, back to the abandoned subway system she never should have gone down into, back to Hyperion City. Back to Phaedra.

When the cart began to move, Alessandra finally let herself cry. Once she’d run out of tears and her eyes were aching, she counted the rations she had left. Enough to get her through the three day journey. She was going to survive this. She would get home just in time to get evicted.

Alessandra wrapped her arms around herself and leaned back in the seat. “Hold on, Phaedra. I’m coming home.”


End file.
